A Polish birthday celebration.

Nina writes that in Poland, when she was growing up, it was the person with the birthday who provided the food to others, who apparently were doing their part just by dropping by with good wishes. So we were happy to play along with that tradition. She set the table with her best hand-painted Russian plates:



Mmmm... the layers there are, from top to bottom: caviar, sour cream, smoked salmon, potato:



This borscht is homemade, as is that puff pastry:



And there's a whole story to why there's already a slice out of that cake -- a story of drunkenness and karaoke:



Nina's got her own account of the party, from which I'm going to snag this picture of me trying to get another photograph: